The present invention relates to a support system for supporting by a computer the development and test of a computer program, and in particular, to a method for displaying program executing circumstances and an apparatus using the same suitable for a case where a path of execution and a position of execution of a program are confirmed in a visual display format.
Conventionally, as demands for software and the like are increased, the development of a computer program and the test of the program become to be achieved by use of a support system such as a computer. This is because most programs among the computer programs once generated need modifications before the programs are used and the programs generated by a computer are required to be tested to confirm whether or not the program can be normally executed. When testing such a program, break points are set to the program so as to halt the program after the program portion up to a break point is executed. Pertinent data is then checked to determine whether or not the path includes an abnormality.
Different from this operation, there has been a system (ANIMATER) which displays the source program on a screen (CRT) of an interactive terminal to indicate operations of the source code (source program) by use of the cusor (refer to the Hitachi T-560/20 Video Data System, Personal Station Program Product Level II COBOL Operation Manual, pp. 63-68 for details).
Moreover, the JP-A-178554 describes an example of the debug information collection in a program test.
In the prior art method, since the path of program execution is not sufficiently obtained in a visual format, the operation in a program can only be checked depending on the numeric values of data, which leads to a program that whether or not the program is completely reliable cannot be externally judged. Moreover, also in the other method described above, there exists also a problem that the path once executed cannot be visually inspected by use of a display.